


A Place of Stone

by billspilledquill



Series: Places [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: 5 + 1 Things (Sort Of), 698 Coda, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, CPTSD, Emphatically Not Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Shinobi System (Naruto), Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: All the times Sasuke could’ve killed Naruto, the in-betweens, and the aftermath.After the battle, Sasuke remembered.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Places [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809058
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	A Place of Stone

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m back with Naruto in full force, to which I am both ashamed of and incredibly not surprised by. Please bear in mind that a lot of canon events is either altered or just... completely discarded (ie. anything post-699). I still hope this is true to their characters!

**  
Amid a place of stone,**

**Be secret and exult,**

**Because of all things known**

**That is most difficult.**

W. B Yeats

_To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing_

**Two  
  
**

The Sharingan flared red. Sasuke stood at its centre; senbon blistered, and fell bleeding to the ground. It was a horrible glimpse; he had saved him. A worse thought occurred: they have saved each other.

He should have let him get killed. At the Land of the Waves, Sasuke survived as Naruto collapsed head first into Haku’s ice, senbon stilling in his body as if to freeze the veins for later exposition. Like an insect, Sasuke thought, to crush and to mutilate. He had hoped the image would give him satisfaction; imagining his brother’s violent and gruesome death usually made the trick.

Sakura soaked his shirt with tears. She held unto him, and Sasuke held her loosely, his eyes wandering, feeling like nothing was made and nothing was done. They stood by the tombstones, and the landscape cleared, the only thing remaining was the image of the sky; beneath, its people.

“Rules twenty-five,” Sakura said; her hands balled into fists. She had finished crying. “But this- this is cruel. Inhumane.”

“It is what we have to do,” Sasuke said, remembering. 

The tombstones were devoid of flowers. Sakura looked at Kakashi with pleading eyes. “Do you think there is something wrong with us, sensei?” she asked, her voice raw. “With the world?”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. “I believe so.”

They were silent on their return. The Sandaime was quite distressed when Kakashi brought him his student’s limp form, the blonde hair falling in turns, and waned like leaves.

“The Jinchūriki,” the Hokage muttered, shaking in head in vain. “We had plans for him.”

Sasuke went training that night, with Sakura tagging along without a further word. They didn’t get much done, exhausted and aching all over, they panted, back to back and heads dipping toward the ground; Sasuke remembered the red gaze of his brother, and a blue one of an almost-friend.

“Rules twenty-five,” Sakura, bright-eyed and morose, reminded him. “To endure; that’s what a shinobi means.”  
  


**Two and a Half  
  
**

“Let me,” said Naruto, “let me do it.”

Sasuke fell asleep fitfully the night after the fight with Zabuza. His body was bandaged and it ached all over. The night stretched long and wide; shadows fell through the window. By the glow of the moon, Sasuke screamed.

“Water,” he repeated, and Naruto rushed out of the door, came back with what looked like well-water. Sasuke scrunched up his nose, then drank.

“You’re a stupid bastard,” muttered Naruto as he took away the empty cup. “Don’t do that ever again.”

The room lacked air; Sasuke was determined to take it all inside. He trashed; his arms wound around his middle. He turned and turned until the world spun; around and around, the earth gasped for air and left nothing in its wake. Sasuke was dying and he had nothing done.

Far away, a white noise surged. Someone took him by the arm. “Sasuke—”

“Leave—” Sasuke panted, then shrieked, “me— alone—”

A growl. “No!”

The grip tightened, and the world halted in its spin. Chakra seeped through, his veins throbbing. Warmth filled calmly in. When the world centered around its axis, Sasuke breathed.

_Are you afraid?_

“What?” Sasuke gasped. The voice yowled inside him; the warmth spiked.

_Are you weak?_

The wind had lifted the stalls; the floor creaked— Naruto had moved back to his poorly made bed. From the corner of his eyes, Sasuke watched Naruto squirm with his two hands flat on his stomach, whispering frantically.

“— something wrong with me.” Naruto’s voice was muffled by the sheets he was thrashing with. Two large eyes, flashing red, turned to Sasuke, his face thinning with sweat. “Something—” Naruto trailed, his voice deep; an almost growl that was almost human. “— can’t leave me alone.”

 _You’re afraid_ , the voice said and the voice listened. The chakra seeped away, and the warmth faltered. _You are weak. Uchiha Sasuke, brother of the prodigy, last member of the Uchiha clan… What are you going to do?_ The voice surged; a beast—

_What can you do?_

**Three  
  
**

That was before. There was a before in Sasuke’s life that he couldn’t quite perceive in the after. Before was a family picture, not quite yellowed, not quite completed, not quite broken. The weather calmed after the fight; the kunai was tight in his hand, weighting his palm as he glanced toward the rain.

Naruto is drenched and unconscious, soaked in blood that wasn’t his own. Naruto didn’t fell like rain; he fell with bones to break and veins to cut; at the edge of the precipice that Sasuke had been waiting for since his family’s death, Naruto had chosen to fall. The rain ought to make it go away, Sasuke thought. The pink rain slithered by the ground, disappeared under a rock, then was never found again.

The Valley of the End was mounted with debris; the sky cleared in a white whisper. Sasuke perceived the reflected sliver of Naruto’s headband, the neat symbol of Konoha branding itself with a meaning that Sasuke failed to understand. Sasuke cared about something, he cared enough to step into the light, and let the rain dash him clean.

“You lost,” Sasuke pronounced, and breathed.

His throat was hoarse; his back burnt, covered in bruises that he cannot see; there was no need for words. Before was the vertebrae of after. To twist off the spine; to aim for the heart. His back hit the ground. Rain stuck to his cheek; he looked sideways. Sasuke stared at the body and began to imagine pearls in his eyes, and in his mouth, salt.

Sasuke toyed with the kunai, examined the angular shape and damage, then dived it straight into Naruto. A spasm of pain ran through the body, shaking the earth, a sharp cry pierced the quieted rain, then nothing at all.

Sasuke stood up halfway before faltering. He kneeled before the body, and the rain battled through.

Sasuke stalked away with a succinct feeling of leaving something important behind. He reached for his bare forehead and wondered if there should be something there, and if he should care for it, if he was allowed to. The ground dried when each step he took, and after, the coloured sunrise.

**Three and a Half  
  
**

“I will bring you home,” Naruto said; every time they met, every time they fought. For a long time Sasuke knew his heart and its desires, and was reassured by the only constant left in the past; a single thing that had never dared to change.

“Konoha is a lost cause. I have no desire for it,” Sasuke said. “My family was killed; you have nothing. You haven’t lost _anyone_. You can’t possibly understand what it means.”

Sasuke did not regret leaving the village. He did not even care to have deserted it. Regret only remembered; it made him weak.

“You are in pain.” Naruto stood at the head of Uchiha Madara’s sculptured head, his face stricken with emotion. “Your pain is yours— give it to me.”

“Let me,” began Naruto, but didn’t finish, staggering when his stomach was hit; he had remembered the fight. They slashed and heaved; their throws were accurate, precise, and in Sasuke’s case, aimed to kill.

The red haze of Naruto’s chakra clouded the landscape, blurring at the seams. The wind had risen; Sasuke felt nothing other than blood tickling his cheeks.

The wind struck. Naruto said against it, cutting its edge. Sasuke listened to the heeding sound it made, then prepared for more. Sometimes it occurred to Sasuke that Naruto did not mind to jump off the precipice; sometimes he realized that he would do the same, but these thoughts never mingled, were never combined inappropriately. Sasuke called out his name and ran to him, to hurt and to bruise; to strike again and again.

“Even so— I will do it,” Naruto said. His voice sounded far away. “I will take your pain. I will take the hatred. Then I will— I will understand why you think the world is wrong, and why you look like you don’t know how to fix it. I will take it; I will take everything.”

**Three  
  
**

A distinct picture created Uchiha Sasuke: his family, belonging in the category of the past, distant and shifting; his teammates, the present, their eyes flashing and their kunai ready in hand. A memory for everything: his mother’s tea, his father’s dropping eyelids, his brother’s smile, a hand over his forehead, then something else, too, but his mind swirled, wild and whirling, until Sasuke was certain to have discovered everything he could know about himself, and was certain to win.

“I will die with you,” said Naruto. Around Naruto there was no shadow. The sun streamed down and licked his boots. To be fair, Naruto was willing to die for almost anything.

They stood opposite; so it was, and so it will always be. They stood side by side once, then back to back, their remarks scathing and leading. There was a time they were friends— Naruto impossible to categorize, to settle as past or present— he would own the sky and still he towered it. Naruto would own the world and spin it and get bored; he always preferred people.

He struck a Chidori; Naruto countered with a Rasengan— but Sasuke wanted out; he wanted rage, to land a fist and be retaliated with a kick. Revenge boiled, but hatred stilled when Naruto caught Sakura by the waist and saved her from his path. His eyes stayed fixed on him as if Sasuke was made of mist, and any movement will dissolve him completely. Sasuke gritted his teeth and lashed some more.

Sakura screamed; shadows creased under her red-rimmed eyes. “Sasuke,” she said.

Sasuke wanted out; Itachi was dead. All paths remained empty, etched in the dark. Sasuke wanted something; he did not know what.

Naruto had a plastered grin, his arms outstretched to the level of the sun. Towering and unflinching, warmth radiating all over, Naruto swung a fist. They fell, stumbling down the watered floor, mingled with blood, and there surged something akin to a memory, present and slithering, over and over.

“I will die with you,” Naruto repeated, his voice the only thing as clear as the water beneath them. “I alone can do it.”

Sasuke plunged a Chidori right through his heart. And so there was a memory, somewhere in the muddled face of the earth, that reminded him of before. Naruto’s arms were stretched, his eyes round and gleaming. There was a whole life in knowing that the sun existed, not even death can dim the knowledge. Like the world, Sasuke thought, it is given freely; the lightening and the thunder and everything else in between.

**Three and a Half  
  
**

The white buzz around them stood still. They were in a place where nothing can touch them.

Itachi was always before him. Before him in age, in skill, in truth; there was not a time where he didn’t feel inadequate as he grew, then more so when Itachi died. Itachi kept dying in his head.

“It’s quiet here,” remarked Naruto eerily, “but we don’t have much time.”

Sasuke kept silent. In his mind’s eye, Itachi’s body rot, like lightening, then dust, then nothing at all. “I told you years ago, Naruto. You don’t understand,” he said. “You haven’t lost anybody.”

Naruto looked at him, grinning vaguely, his eyes downcast. Sasuke briefly considered if Naruto did, perhaps, lost someone. It had been three years; Sasuke was a world away from understanding other people’s loss.

Naruto shook his head. “I heard the truth from someone. About Itachi,” Naruto said. “It doesn’t matter if it is the truth or not. I don’t care. You are in pain; I know you are.” Naruto’s answer echoed distantly with another, younger boy, shrieking with blood around his mouth. “That’s all I know. It’s all I understand.”

“Then you understand _nothing_ ,” Sasuke sneered, his hand on his blade.

Itachi stayed in a corner of his mind that was blank and meaningless. The precipice was right in front of them, and Naruto held his gaze steadily. Naruto had always been ready to die.

“Let me shoulder it, let me take it,” Naruto said, reaching. “Whatever hurts, whatever pains— let me.”

Behind them, the mountains roared, and the wind soared. Sasuke didn’t look back; he grazed Naruto with a kunai; Naruto dodged. They stepped back, and the rotting corpse of Itachi in his head reeked.  
  


**Four**

Hero was what they said of Naruto. Careless, flaunting, Sasuke thought it the worst nickname one could give. Only so long ago they were calling him a monster.

The Valley of the End looked the same. It hadn’t aged or suffered. They stood opposite each other, as always, on the heads of the founders of a village Sasuke had given up long ago. Naruto looked older; his face marred by the debris of war and streaks of tears. He reminded Sasuke of himself, and Sasuke, with his mind turned over and over by the ever-shifting wind, reminded him of Naruto. Pillagers, destroyers, seekers of ruthless truths; in the end, none of them were heroes.

“This world is broken. It has long been,” Sasuke said. “I can fix it.”

Naruto’s gaze hadn’t changed; over the years, Sasuke learnt to understand it. “Fix what?”

“Pain,” said Sasuke.

Naruto’s mouth thinned. “I thought we established that it does not lead to peace. You saw what happened to others.”

“This world is broken,” Sasuke insisted. “Reforms are not enough; revolution is at stake. You have been focusing too much on the people; you never cared about the world as a unity, as a whole. In a broken system there is no use for a hero; it needs a villain.”

Naruto grunted rudely. “You are not a villain, Sasuke.”

“I will take it— plug it from the earth,” said Sasuke. “Surely you understand why we are fighting, Naruto, that’s what we have been doing, isn’t it? Always fighting. You are perpetuating the cycle— revenge, hatred, bond, however you call the curse. When I kill you— it would be over. It would be time for another one, a cycle that Itachi hadn’t managed to create—” Sasuke trailed off. Naruto had jumped to his side, his hand dragging the front of his shirt, eyes blazing. “A cycle of peace.”

“Do you ever think about it, Naruto?” he continued, unfazed by the strength. “How the end always find itself in the beginning— how the end justifies the means? How we should have never met…”

Naruto gritted his teeth. “Stop.”

“… and found ourselves in the same team. We were dead from the first. We are _tools_. Can’t you see it?”

Naruto moved.

And so they fought. And so it was, and so it will always be; always fighting, always pursuing, always desiring. It seemed to Naruto that they had the same goals, circling each other like animals, struggling to kill, struggling to leave. A cycle, if nothing else, of hatred for the ways of the world. Sasuke supposed they have never learnt how to part properly without resulting to death or worse, lingering, staggering pain.

“We have been at each other’s throats for long enough, Naruto. We can finish this once and for all,” said Sasuke, hands moving in quick signs. “Let me cut you down,” he said, “and I will let you take it, whatever it is that you want, whatever remains in the rest of this heart that I have no use for.”

Naruto’s eye was swollen to the point of blindness; Sasuke choked on two teeth of his own. Sasuke threw a fist to Naruto’s forehead. The headband slipped and fell to the ground, dipping soundlessly into the watered floor, then resurfacing, only the sliver of Konoha emerged, gleaming under the light. Naruto scrambled to reach him, his hands all over.

Their foreheads touched; Naruto closed his eyes, the lines under them relaxed. For a brief moment, he looked asleep.

“I can feel it—” Naruto gasped, his eyes slits of blue and red. He didn’t even seem to have opened his mouth, but the words can only be his. “It hurts— it hurts so much,” he said, them spluttered. The floor coloured. “You must be in so much—“

Sasuke’s hands come to close around his throat. Naruto’s eyes flashed open; he looked on, careful not to make a sound. It was like he had already ceased existing; it was the precipice all over again, and Naruto was falling ahead of him, his steps reckless and unafraid.

Sasuke squeezed harder. “Why are you doing _this_?” he asked, his blood rushing in his ears. “Why are you so intent on doing _this_?”

Naruto struggled to speak. He did not move. “What—”

“I don’t know,” Sasuke said, trembling; furious, his chakra was pulsing weakly against his temple. “How am I supposed to know! You—"

Naruto lay his hand flat on Sasuke’s chest, not pushing, not moving; a three-minute corpse. “Let me,” said Naruto, willing the words out of his throat. His head rolled on the ground, then his hand fell, but Sasuke can feel the warmth of his hand lingering like a phantom over his chest; his heart.

Sasuke stood wobbling on his feet. He coughed red; red splatters against the ground. No matter; the water will wash everything clean.

**Four and a Half  
  
**

It happened after they used their chakra up to the brim: they were dead. Images of themselves kept replaying in their heads, and so Sasuke assumed. Images of the hospital fight played with leaks of water down the drain; Naruto’s Rasengan envied him at that time. He used to envy everything about Naruto, but that was before. There wasn’t quite an after to source yet, but if Sasuke ought to find it in death, so it will be. 

“It’s funny,” said Naruto, balancing the soles of his shoes as he walked, “I kinda like it, y’know, being dead with you. Things are easier like that, and I probably get to see ma in a couple of hours.”

“You are still not Hokage, Naruto,” he reminded him. “Now you’re dead.”

Naruto grinned; a loop-sided thing. “You’re dead too, y’know, so don’t be such a cocky bastard,” Naruto mumbled. He was sitting on a swing, his ankles twisting playfully under the grass. “You haven’t realized your goal,” Naruto said with a pointed look. 

“I was betting. I was trying to win; I did,” he said, shrugging. “My goal ends with you in death. I was determined.”

Naruto laughed; the swing shook under him. “There’s nothing to compete anymore. There is nothing to _win_. I was hoping we could live, but dying together got the same flair. I like it alright.”

They can see the small pond where Sasuke once sat, glancing at his own reflection. Naruto used to stroll there, up on the hill. Sasuke remembered; he was afraid how much. The swing that Naruto sat on creaked under the weight.

“I don’t suppose I will be leaving you anytime soon,” said Sasuke slowly, looking over at the purple clouds. No wind had stirred. “You have always been pestering me about going home.”

Naruto pushed his swing up, then stood, leaving his back to him. Naruto had always left his back to him. “How can I leave you?” he said. “You are me; a part of it, at least. Flesh and bone; it had always felt like it. I have never been able to leave you alone.”

Sasuke turned him around; pushed a hand to Naruto’s chest. There was a heartbeat, thudding slowly and softly like a bird’s flight. The shape of his heart was a beautiful thing.

“You want to go home,” said Sasuke. “Do you know where it is?”

Naruto craned his head up to the wind. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere,” said Sasuke.

“We can go anywhere,” Naruto said. The wind stirred. A branch snapped as a bird took flight; Sasuke looked up.

The heads of previous Hokage glared at him with cavernous eyes. Sasuke had longed, a long time ago, to also be carved as a head uphill, his face stoic and unsmiling beside his brother’s. He can’t imagine it now, in death or whatever way death existed— him or Naruto, up on that hill. Static, unchanging, stale; these faces were lost to him. The wind continued its course— soft and calling, and those faces never changed, never moved. When it will snow, Sasuke thought, and when it will melt on between the two rigid, unbending eyes— they will seem like tears, then.

Sasuke woke up to the sound of Naruto’s snores; the wind was lifting the dust clean. The Valley of the End in the night was broken down, flailed; a gaping disaster, he thought, then felt his arm. He fell back to sleep, aching, with the phantom feeling of something cradling his hand, warm and seeping quietly through.

**One and a Half  
  
**

Sasuke spent three months outside the village after Naruto’s pleas to Kakashi granted him permission. He left with a headband of a thirteen-year-old in his hand, and a vague smile on his face. He and Naruto met at the forest, just a few feet from the gates of Konoha.

“You’re not stopping me now,” Sasuke remarked. 

“You have things you have to do. I have mine,” said Naruto, smiling ruefully. “I don’t disagree with your ideals, Sasuke; I don’t like your ways, ‘s all.”

You have saved me, he wanted to say, but saving wasn’t quite the word. You are me, he thought, and left it unsaid.

“I will see,” said Sasuke. “I will let you know.”

Naruto leant his back to the tree, crossing his arms. “Are you still in pain?” Naruto asked. 

“We have suffered through more than just a war, Naruto.”

It was the use of ‘we’ that made Naruto smile, certainly. “We will get better, I promise,” he said, because everything turned to promises; something to realize, like something to shoulder. “And I don’t get back on my promise, you know that!”

“It’s your nindō,” said Sasuke. “I know.”

“Never give up,” he said, puffing his chest. “Never go back to my word.”

“And look at where it got you.”

Naruto grinned. “I hope find your answer, Sasuke,” he said rather bashfully, his hands crossing behind him. “The world is a beautiful place. Just let it show you, yeah?”

Naruto handed him the headband and Sasuke pocketed it. Sasuke briefly wondered if it would still be drenched in waterfall and soaked in blood, like that day, like so many days after that. Sasuke held out his hand; Naruto took it carefully; his grasp was firm and warm, and he held on.

“You’re real,” said Naruto softly with unrestrained wonder. “I am so glad that you are. I am so glad to have met you.”

Everything in his life had been a series of pursuits. Naruto had forgiven everyone quickly and swiftly, then searched for something to follow and someone to pursue. Sasuke had kept everything, from one memory to another, in revenge and in hatred; maybe he was the one that couldn’t give up on the past; maybe he was the one that can’t leave anything behind.

“People say that you’re a hero; you are not,” Sasuke said, watching him, their fingers still clasped, uncouth of a handshake. “You are a mindless, misgiving child. You starve for approval; you always had. You gave people the chance they never give you. You are optimistic—you aspire to be; and it had blinded you the same way it has blinded Itachi. You have chosen belief rather than scepticism, and it got us to where we are now; desolate and destitute. You must know, of all people, that peace built on belief alone is non-lasting.”

Naruto looked like he was about to say something. Sasuke continued, “but you’re different. Different than Itachi, different than others that came before him. You’re not willing to give up things, things that matter, for a glimpse of the future. You are essential to change,” he said, then frowned. “What?”

Naruto sniffed. “Nothing.”

“Wipe off the constipated look on your face. I am not finished.”

Naruto sniffed louder, running a hand across his face. “I am not constipated, bastard. Stop smiling yourself. You’re disgusting me.”

“We used to dream about change,” Sasuke said, the corner of his mouth twitching. It felt as through he had got all these things to say, and finally got someone to say to. “You have said that we are alike, Naruto. I will go— and I will prove it.”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” said Naruto.

“Let me, then,” said Sasuke.

The wind shifted; they embraced. It was quite difficult to do it without an arm. Naruto kept silence; only his shoulders were shaking.

“I acknowledge you if you will me,” said Sasuke, “only then, Naruto— only then we will meet as equals. When I’ll have my answer about this world, about myself, I’ll come and find you.”

The arm around him tightened, then the shaking continued. The trees were shaking along, forward by the wind. The world seemed to have listened, it occurred to Sasuke, about the meaning of spring.

“So let me go and I’ll see it,” said Sasuke, releasing him as the wind picked up the words, “how it is, this world that you have sworn to protect, that you want to change; if it is as beautiful as you make it out to be.”

**One  
  
**

When Sasuke returned to Konoha three months later, only Sakura was there for him by the opening gate. Refreshed and excited, Sakura lead him into the village with a gesture of her hand that conveyed feelings that Sasuke did not feel or return. When he told her that, she laughed.

“You’d think it was clear when you tried to kill me. It’s okay,” she said quickly, “I tried to kill you too,” she added, her hair swinging back and forth as she jumped in front of him with a toothy smile. “Aren’t you going to ask me where Naruto is?”

“Where is he?” he asked. She only laughed harder.

“We didn’t know you are coming back today,” she explained. “After all, you didn’t leave us any note. I only saw you by accident. I was having a nice little stroll. The sky was very lovely today…”

Sasuke did not notice any difference in the sky. “Where are we going?”

“The hospital,” she said, and her smile faltered. “Naruto is doing fine,” she reassured quickly, “he is there for a visit. He would be there every day at this hour, so I gathered we can find him there.”

“Visiting?”

“A bad case. Infinite Tsukuyomi,” she stated. “An eleven-year-old child; couldn’t cope with waking up. We have set mind healers to help her, but Naruto was adamant in meeting her himself. He wanted to listen to her. She said she is—”

“In pain,” Sasuke supplied. “He always had a penchant for those who would rather stay in the darkness rather than face the truth.”

“The truth,” Sakura said, biting her lip. “And why didn’t you put forward your plan? The world is in reasonable shambles. There’s not a better time for chaos. Revolution is best served hot.” 

“Because I lost,” he said.

“Naruto wouldn’t consider himself the winner,” said Sakura. “If you really lost, then you would be dead.” 

No one noticed him. The street of Konoha did not lack its cheerful line of people waiting to go home. The symbol of Konohagakure branded itself on the hospital roof. Medics rushed in and out of the exit, buzzing through streams of the afternoon sun.

Her hair had lengthened, her eyes clear and determined. They all had expectations to answer to, Sasuke thought, and for the first time wondered how she had changed, too.

“I couldn’t understand you when it mattered the most,” she said. “I wanted to save you. I wanted to fix you; I suppose, like one would fix a brunt tissue—pressure, care; as success rate goes, you are a medical miracle for even surviving. I wanted to try. I wanted to prove myself; I wanted to be _acknowledged_.” She fumbled her hands, checking the small white scars scattered across the skin. “When that didn’t work, I left you alone,” she said. “I abandoned you.”

“I left everyone behind. You had nothing to answer for,” he said.

She shook her head. “You cared for me— you cared for me a little. But I can’t hold my life on a little. I was furious, I was weak, whatever you wish to call it— I let Naruto promise that he will bring you back.”

“He did,” he said, then, feeling as though he should do something, took her hands in his.

She stared. Sakura turned their palms facing up, examining more intently than ever. “He didn’t do it for me,” she said, low as a whisper. “I’ve nothing to do with it. But he’s got to put his passion somewhere, he’s got to put a label on it accordingly— he’s got to rage against someone that isn’t himself; he’s got to hope— to put a name to his emotions. A promise is convenient. Naruto likes to promise things— things that matter, things that don’t— promise is the only order he follows; god knows he’s broken the rules enough to be disqualified as a shinobi forever.”

“You don’t need to say this to me,” Sasuke said.

“I am not excusing myself,” she snapped. “I am simply saying whatever I have got to say. I owe Naruto this; I owe myself a chance to explain. Naruto will never say anything; he is stubborn and disgustingly sympathetic, but I know better. You want to know this too; about how I was, about how he were.”

“I do,” said Sasuke, remembering, “I have felt it. His chakra told me.”

Her hands fell on her sides, and Sasuke clenched his fists on nothing. She gestured him inside; the white hospital wing glared brightly. “I think that’s the longest talk I ever had with you, and I spent it on that moron,” she said, nevertheless in good cheer. “When he feels better, I’m going to beat him up a little to compensate.”

“ _A little_ ,” muttered Sasuke, coughing lightly.

Sakura laughed as she cracked her knuckles. “Very funny, Sasuke-kun,” she said, looking entertained and a little incredulous. “I will give it to you since it is your first attempt at a joke, but only then.”

Sakura halted before a white door. She knocked, stating their names and the reason of visit. When it opened, Hatake Kakashi was sitting aimlessly on a stool, a book open on his lap. The Hokage hat rested on the corner and startled on the floor.

“Sakura,” Kakashi greeted, closing his book with ease. His eyes narrowed when he noticed him. He had concealed his signature well. “Sasuke; back so soon. How are you?”

“He’s here to see Naruto, Hokage-sama,” she said, bowing lightly. Kakashi put out a hand, shaking his head. “Where is Mio? Did she switch room?”

“Naruto is in the room B4,” Kakashi said, his visible eye blinking at the window.

“B4?” Sakura cried. “But—Kakashi-sensei— Hokage-sama— Naruto hasn’t been in B4 for a full week. I thought he was making progress. Why now?”

“Mio is dead, Sakura,” Kakashi said. “She found a fruit knife and stabbed herself when no one was looking. He had always felt a kinship to the child. I suppose it is wise for him to calm down, so when he requested room B4, we granted him permission.”

Sakura gnawed her nails. “He better come out alive,” she said furiously. “Last time he almost starved himself. He spent a week in that dreadful place.”

Kakashi didn’t turn his head toward them. “It wasn’t better when he did,” he said, “he ate so much that he purged.”

“He doesn’t deserve this,” Sakura muttered with uncontained rage. “We did what we have to do—we can’t right all the wrongs in the world.”

“Yes,” said Kakashi, dipping his head to his book. His hand shook the page. “I believe so.”

“I want to see him,” Sasuke said. Voices erupted and drawled at once.

“—it’s risky—”

“—I don’t think it’s wise, Sasuke—”

“—he is hardly himself, and when he sees you, he will—"

“Please,” he said.

Sakura raised her voice, branding her fists, but Kakashi sighed.

“Sasuke,” Kakashi said, “the room B4 is designed especially for patients that _need and require_ silence. It is forbidden to enter room B4 without the person inside leaving first.”

“I have broken enough rules,” said Sasuke, almost missing the way his voice pitched. “Let me see him.”

“Just look!” Sakura shoved him her arm, the sleeve rolled up halfway through. A scar slithered across her skin, still pink and raw. “It’s better if you let him calm down. He doesn’t want to hurt you,” she reasoned, “but sometimes— _accidents_ happen.”

But Sasuke can hear it, the chakra from long ago. A voice, no longer monstrous or terrifying, reached out to him. Sasuke can’t make out the words, but he remembered the voice calling him weak. He was angered once, but nothing spurn forth now, in this stale room of strangers.

_What can you do?_

“I will see him,” Sasuke said, his hand wheeling the doorknob. “You cannot stop me.”

“He doesn’t want to hurt you,” Sakura repeated in alarm, her voice pitched high and loud. “Please, Sasuke, trust me! Give him time. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Sasuke’s back hit the door, glancing at the room surreptitiously. “You claim that the world failed him,” he drawled. “But this village did first. Everyone that lives here is guilty. I have no trust to give, nor should he. To a wronged world,” he said slowly, “we are nothing but tools. I belong to no factions; I will fight them all. I don’t want to obey; I don’t want to endure. I will see him and you will lead me to him.”

Sakura protested. “Very well,” said Kakashi. “Follow me, then.”

“I have had enough,” Sakura said furiously, pushing past him, her eyes blazing as she sneered. “You know what? I wish I’ve spoken to him earlier; earlier than our team, earlier than our mission. I wish we were less cruel when we were children. I wish everything were less. Even me. Even _you_. The village is guilty. I am guilty and you are right! You are right—"

She turned her back to him, her shoulders quivering in a barely contained rage. “But there are rules— that we need to follow—that _I_ followed. I did the best I can, of course, I am best at theory, at learning off books, at _obeying_ — but you didn’t; Naruto didn’t. You went away when it was considered treason; he went chasing after you when it was fruitless. I wanted to be like you, like Naruto— to break rules. But I didn’t—you know I didn’t. I didn’t dare. I didn’t have the guts.” Her voice carried. “I had enough of that. So go find him. Do what you do best. And I will do my best and— leave you alone.”

“You have done enough, Sakura,” reasoned Kakashi. “You saved them from death.”

But she was still looking at Sasuke. “I wished I didn’t give up on you,” Sakura retorted, her head bowed, shaking in a gust of passion. “I wish I did better than _enough_ for both of you,” she said, and Sasuke watched her go, her clothes dragged as she went.

“I will lead you the way,” said Kakashi in a way that suggested doing so was the equivalent of a S-rank mission. 

The hallway was littered inch by inch with white. Some medics turned to stare at Sasuke’s dark cloak and some muttered between themselves. He had recognized them; they were the ones huddled together, pondering over the possibility of causing accidental death. Naruto was lying on the bed across him then, his raw flesh scorched with blood, his breath shallow as he begged them to check Sasuke first, because _Sasuke looks more like a bastard than usual, and that is really saying something, so examine him with care, or who knows, he might die from bastardization of some kind._

“Still want to be Hokage?” Kakashi asked as he swept through slow and bored strides. “Have you found your answer?”

“No,” Sasuke said.

Kakashi halted just so, but quickly continued his deliberate walk. His mask hid his face; the fabric moved against his lips when he said, “and yet you want to see him.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Many had found answers in him,” Kakashi said, white light draping over his sliver hair. “Of course. We find in Naruto what we want to believe. A well-wisher; the decision made as you toss the coin mid-air. Naruto doesn’t know what answers lie within him, let alone others’ desires.”

“He knows mine,” said Sasuke.

“You and he are an entity of your own.” Crossing his hands behind his head, Kakashi continued lazily, “Naruto’s beliefs are bland; obvious to the naked eye. When the Hyuuga sacrificed one of their own—when your brother sacrificed himself for the village, for its will, Naruto failed to probe deeper, failed to see that it was beyond individual change. He understands those who are upfront and articulate, and only just. He will give you answers. Perhaps they will even be good enough, but you will never find his own, nor his own answer about the world.”

“He doesn’t need to tell me anything,” said Sasuke. “I just need to see him.”

“He might not want to see you. What will you do then?”

“He will see me,” he said.

Kakashi was silent before continuing. “You say that you lost. But I think you really did kill him, in some way,” Kakashi said, stopping to trail his fingers against the guarded door, the bulging metal spelling _B4_ in bold, “his life had been set in stone. His goals were clear since I first met him. Then you left. He had changed ever since,” Kakashi said, turning the seal on the door, then pushed swiftly. “For better or for worse, you two changed accordingly.”

“If that were the case,” Sasuke said, “then he had killed me first. He and I have both died in that battle. He had killed me first, and he died with me. I have never succeeded in killing him.” 

Kakashi shifted. “You sound like a friend I once had,” he said. “A very dear one. I will tell you about him someday.”

Sasuke stepped forward to the half-opened door. Spiraled wood receded, reveling a warm, steep room. Sasuke saw through the dark, careful not using his Sharingan, then something glimmered.

Hope, he thought, but hope alternated; the weak link of it all— changing and spiraling. Home, he considered, but nothing reminded him of his family, the once-Konoha, the small pond; warm and cold they had all been in turns, the feeling of bashfulness and a child’s wish. Everything unmade; nothing remained. In Sasuke’s wake, everything had been dead at least once.

“Naruto,” Sasuke voiced. The door closed behind him.

It was Naruto, he thought, Naruto breathing and living and being. It had always been like this; living and being. Nothing— not hope nor home nor death— had stirred the world quite as much as him.   
  


**Half  
  
**

Before, Sasuke dreamt of being Hokage, wild trees, and the curve of his brother’s smile. The world was self-contained in a single drop, and Sasuke saw everything through it. When he stared down the lake, his reflection stirred with the shaken hues; the wind was rising as the sunset coloured a bright orange.

The room painted itself blue, a reflection of a pond, and the glimmer of his past self. Naruto sat beside his shadow and was staring straight ahead. He wasn’t wearing his headband.

“Room B4 simulates scenarios that calm down the recipient of its spell,” Naruto said, his hair bright against the slow, dawning sun. “It is not suited for two people. It’s hard to desire the same thing at the same time.”

The child Sasuke disappeared from Naruto’s side. Sasuke had walked up to him. Their chakra responded, and warmth surged familiarly, mingled wildly in-between.

“What happened last time Sakura went inside?”

“I hurt her,” Naruto said. “I was sleeping. She startled me awake with a slap that was a little too strong.”

“You remembered things,” said Sasuke, sensing the chakra spiking. “It terrified you.”

Naruto looked at him, and smiled a little. “I was imagining my old bed. A woman had tried to kill me with a fruit knife when I was little. The ANBU intervened, of course. They had to keep the whole incident quiet. She was only a civilian. She was just afraid I might hurt her child if I grow old enough to go to school.”

“You forgave her,” Sasuke stated, tiredness creeping in his voice. “You forgave everyone.”

“There are many things that I can’t forget. There are days where I remember too vividly to function. It doesn’t mean that I don’t hold the right to forgive,” said Naruto nonchalantly. “Jiji had given me special use of this room when I was old enough to remember the incidents. Had to sleep somewhere.”

“Who is Mio?”

“Her parents were shit,” Naruto said, and the feeling of tiredness grew from the chakra bond. “She dreamt of a world where they weren’t. We couldn’t let her go back to her family, so I negotiated with Gaara about letting her live with me. She can’t go back to Suna alone. I received Gaara’s answer yesterday. I was about to tell her today. She might even smile a little; she hasn’t smiled at all since she woke up.”

Naruto stood up slowly, his hands on his knees. “Have you found your answer, Sasuke?”

“I wanted to see you first,” Sasuke said.

The chakra tensed, and the connection snapped. “You have seen me,” Naruto said. “What about now?”

The scenery changed. They were back to the Valley of the End, where the water flowed uninterrupted. The ruins all around them, Sasuke stood by the water and glanced at their overlapped reflections swinging back and forth until they formed one shadow.

“Don’t act so surprised. I know your heart, and you know mine,” Naruto said with a laugh. “You are me.”

Sasuke’s hands hovered at the level of his chest, assessing it. He let go with a small huff. “I am you,” he finally relented. “I have always wanted to be like you, Naruto.”

Naruto scratched his nose. He huffed, “I think it is about time that you realise it, bastard. I’m awesome.”

“I lost,” Sasuke said, “but this world hasn’t. You will be its leader, and there’s not anyone who is better fit than me to be your shadow.”

Naruto sighed, a little frustrated. “I want you to _live_ , Sasuke,” he said. “I want at least one of us to move on.”

“There will others, again,” Sasuke said, “like that child, like you and me. The five villages have maintained a considerable balance ever since through favours and plots and massacres. We are tools— for expansion, for rhetoric, what you will. We can’t move on when nothing has changed. The last war was a manifestation of century-long conflict. Of peace, I cannot believe without sacrifice, but you can.”

Naruto didn’t reply for a long time. The chakra stilled in the air, shifting. Sasuke tried to connect to it, releasing his own, tugging softly at Naruto’s link.

“Is that your answer?” Naruto asked. “You want to help me change the world?”

“No,” said Sasuke. “When you do change the world, that result will be my answer.”

The water stopped. The room glowed threateningly, then it turned white, dotted with golden fires. They were inside their minds, and Sasuke can hear the beat of their hearts thudding as one; such beautiful shapes.

“It’s going to be hard,” Naruto said.

“I know. I am willing.”

“I won’t get everything right.”

“The world is often wrong. You can’t get anywhere close to the wrongness that it has already.”

“We will need more than Konoha. We will need more than ourselves. Alliances. Clans. Compromises. I am not good at that.”

“I will do what you can’t. I will be your shadow. I never planned to stay here.”

“We’ll go,” Naruto said. “It’s the only way.”

“Your dream is to be Hokage,” Sasuke said. “I thought it hasn’t changed.”

Naruto closed his eyes, dark bruises under them. His lashes fluttered as he spoke, “I wanted to be acknowledged by people, by everyone in the world. My world was Konoha. I love this village, the sky, and its people. But I cannot be a leader, not the way Konoha wants,” Naruto said solemnly. When he opened his eyes, they were clear in its purpose. “If you want a revolution, I will lead. Leading a war is different from leading a village; I know my limits.”

“You wouldn’t leave the village,” whispered Sasuke, and a wild hope surged in his heart unnoticed. He had forgotten about it, how good it felt, and how terrifying.

“I love this village, it will not change; my loyalty will remain. But I want to see this world. I want to be by your side when change happens. I will ask Kakashi-sensei about it,” Naruto said, as if it was a small request, as if his words hadn’t changed everything. “If not, well— I guess I never really good with rules, am I?”

“We can go,” said Sasuke with tinging eyes. “We can go anywhere.”

“Anywhere,” Naruto echoed cheekily. “You’re stuck with me. Your last chance to escape this is to kill me now. There’s no one watching.”

The room had morphed back to a simple woodened room, stashed with spells and parchments. Naruto’s last scenario was this: a room and a choice. Naruto handed him a kunai; his face was impassive, but there was a smile on his face that he couldn’t wipe off completely.

“Let me,” Naruto said. “Let me give it to you, whatever it is that you want. Take it.”

“Give it, then,” Sasuke said roughly, and the kunai fell with a _klang_ on the floor. “I want everything from you. I want you alive and I want to be you. You will give me this— all that you are. You’re an idiot for not seeing it. Anywhere— we are going together. You are never getting rid of me.”

Naruto’s answering laugh echoed in the room, and as it ringed, Sasuke wiped away the tears.

**Zero**

Sakura bid them goodbye in a hot, cloudless afternoon. A small part of her wanted to go, but she wanted to live her life uninterrupted. Naruto hugged her and promised her to come and get her when it was time to fight. There will be a time to fight, with fists to bruise and hearts to mend. Sakura believed him; Kakashi was sceptical.

“He promised,” she explained to him. “It’s a promise of a lifetime.”  
  
Sasuke went to her last. His face was lightened by rays streaming through the trees.   
  
”I will show you,” he said then, “what I can do.” 

She didn’t know how Kakashi was convinced by Naruto’s desire for leaving, nor how did Kakashi convinced the council for such a thing. When the time comes, Kakashi had said, others will understand Naruto’s choices.

The mountains shone with the same brilliance of spring. The previous Hokages hadn’t changed and hadn’t aged; their faces stone and carved to a past that belonged to before. Kakashi and Sakura walked a long time together in contemplative silence for the rest of the day.

“Sakura,” said Kakashi, his voice carried far and away, his hands in his pocket. “I wanted to tell you the story of my friend.” And he did.

A warm breeze settled; Sakura looked up. The leaves flew out of the gates and swirled before they disappeared out of sight.

“The wind rises,” she said.

Sakura went home; her parents greeted her with a smile, then returned to aimless bickering.

**Author's Note:**

> There might be an sequel. Tell me what you think!


End file.
